Friday, April 17, 2015

Bad Bows and Good Bows

BOWED TENDON AND BOW
OUT

We had it all planned out: Ellie would head south and not
miss any training this spring;she had
grown up and, more importantly, she seemed to have matured between her 3 and 4
year old years; we now knew she would be a router and not a sprinter so we
could get her ready accordingly.Yup we
had it all planned out.

Then we get “the call”.Well, not THE call, but a crappy one none-the-less.Her trainer had come in that morning and felt
some heat just below her knee.She was a
bit tender but not enough to take a bad step.Still, it bore watching so we waited and the first few days it seemed
like maybe she just slept on herself wrong.Then the heat and soreness were back and an ultrasound was done.

She bowed a tendon.

A human way to think of it is tendonitis or a tendon
tear.However you look at it, though, it
is NOT good for a racehorse.The prescription?Ninety days of stall rest and then a slow
resumption of activity in after taking another picture to make sure that the
damage is healed.

As a Minnesota bred who probably can’t compete in open
company outside of the state you might as well have told us her career was
over.Which it now is.

There is no way that we could have her back for this season
and that meant another full year on the bench and it wasn’t fair to her
partners to put them through that.Who
knows what would happen to this poor, snakebit mare next!?She had a tough season at 2 with shins, she
didn’t do well at 3 and now, with her 4-year old season closed, it’s time to
find her a new job.We’ll get her
rehabbed and then we will see what the future has in store for her.It’s part of our responsibility as owners and
one that we take seriously.

TAKE A BOW FOR YOUR
DEBUT

Mr. Lexis was purchased privately out of California a few
weeks ago and shipped to trainer Clay Brinson at Hawthorne Race Course.Mr. Lexis is a lightly raced 4-year old
gelding out of the Valid Appeal mare Tracy V and sired by Badge of Silver.He was bred by former Governor Brereton Jones
in KY and sold for $45,000 at Keeneland.

He went and raced in Peru where he missed by a neck in a
Grade 1 as a maiden but did finally break his maiden in South America and
followed that up with an allowance win before shipping to the US to work under
trainer Peter Miller.

After 10 starts at Santa Anita and Del Mar without a win
against allowance and mid-level claimers, we picked him up and sent him east
where he looks to make his first start Saturday in a conditioned allowance over
the turf at Hawthorne.He was installed
as the tepid 7/2 morning line favorite so we should get a pretty good handle on
what this group has on its hands.

When one door closes, another opens.The door has closed on Ellie but now opens
for Mr Lexis.The racing cycle rolls on.